About Duane Akina

Duane Akina is the assistant head coach and defensive backs coach for the Texas Longhorns football team.
In 28 years of coaching football, Akina has coached three Thorpe Award winners in Darryll Lewis, Michael Huff, and Aaron Ross, as well as five finalists for the award, among them Chris McAlister. Twenty of his defensive backs have also gone on to play in the NFL.
He was an assistant coach to Dick Tomey at the University of Arizona for 14 years, serving as defensive backs coach and offensive coordinator. He was named Arizona defensive coordinator in 2000, but decided to leave for Texas to become the team's defensive back coach.
Akina was promoted to co-defensive coordinator and retained his duties as defensive backs coach for the Longhorns from 2005-2007. In the 2007 season, he shared the defensive coordinator position with Larry Mac Duff, but called the defensive plays. After a frustrating season, in which the Longhorns defense allowed a school-record 4,498 total yards, Akina could have faced dismissal following the 2007 Holiday Bowl. However, not Akina, but Larry Mac Duff resigned. Akina was nonetheless demoted to secondary coach after Will Muschamp was hired as the new defensive coordinator.

He not only understands the defensive concepts we're trying to accomplish, he understands what the offense is thinking, too. So I can position him mentally to take the strains off of our linebackers and the rest of the secondary. I can put all the mental cover-down rules on him.